Flickr announced this afternoon the long awaited addition of video capabilities to the video sharing site. The launch, occurring at 6:00 PM ET, will roll out the new features to Flickr sites worldwide, in a total of eight languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and traditional Chinese.

Despite the relatively large nature of the announcement, the Yahoo-owned photo sharing site was careful not to roll out the addition as a new site or standalone feature, instead opting for a more subtle integration into its existing platform.

Videos uploaded to the site appear in users' galleries alongside still photos, but can be played inline as a thumbnail or expanded out for larger viewing. The Flash-based videos are designated from standard still images by a small "Play" triangle located in the lower left-hand side of the image thumbnail.

Brian Heater has worked at a number of tech pubs, including Engadget, Laptop, and PCMag (where he served as Senior Editor). Most recently, he was as the Managing Editor of TechTimes.com. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Lucy.
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